


Fugue

by satalderihannsu



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Angst, Bunny's Mean, Fluff, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, doofy old man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 14:14:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2351324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satalderihannsu/pseuds/satalderihannsu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Indulgent, twee angsty cuteness.  Lots of FEELS.  Also linguistics (I wish).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fugue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DVDemoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DVDemoni/gifts).



**PART I: Text**

TICK. TAP. TAPPYTAP. … TICK.

Barnaby clenched one hand in irritation.

CLICK. TIPPYTAPTAP. …TICKTICKTICKTICK. CLICK. CLICK. “Hmmm…”

Barnaby stared into the side of Kotetsu’s head.

CLICK. TAP. taptaptaptaptap…

“What are you doing?!”

"Henh?” Kotetsu mumbled. “What?”

“Why are you typing so much? I saw the form! There’s not that much to even fill out.”

“Oh, nah, not really. Just correcting errors from typing.”

Barnaby stared, incredulous. “So, you’re incapable, is that what you mean? That you cannot type?”

Kotetsu glared. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

Barnaby hide a smirk. “I suppose that’s to be expected of you.”

Kotetsu nodded. “Yeah, but hey, its hard to be able to remember all the spellings in two languages.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you cannot type or spell in both languages you supposedly know fluently?” Barnaby raised a scathing eyebrow.

He looked down at his keyboard. “I didn’t say that. I can actually write well in Japanese, you know, but with English, you break up the words into weird sections or just take them apart completely.”

"I have no idea what you’re talking about." Weird sections? Taken apart? But he leaned over Kotetsu’s shoulder and watched his fingers type. He found it oddly attractive: strong fingertips struck decisively, if imperfectly, at keys. Barnaby mentally chastised himself. These idle fancies were happening too often. If he continued to indulge them, his work would be impacted.

"Yeah." He hunted and looked over his keyboard again. "Like your name. The way we’d write it at home, it would come out "Bah-Na-Bee. It’s like… five characters long, depending." He typed a word quickly, and sighed and turned to sign some more of his paperwork.

After a while, Barnaby asked, “What does it look like?” He was very close to Kotetsu’s ear. His eyes were cool and curious.

"Hm? Hmm…" He tugged a scrap piece of paper toward him. "Write your name down. I want to spell it right."

"You can’t spell my name? Are you serious? We’ve worked together how long now?" The calm eyes turned very cold… and cranky…

"Do you want me to tell you the wrong way to write it?" He looked at Barnaby in all seriousness. He watched as Barnaby grumpily wrote down his whole name. Kotetsu looked down at the page, turned his pen nib sideways, and deposited upon it a few twitchily gestured strokes. He slid the paper over to Barnaby. "Like that. I would need to know why your parents named you ‘Barnaby’ to do better." He said the name in the same mangled way as always.

Barnaby took the paper with a bit of shy embarrassment. “…What does… your name look like?” he asked very softly.

He smiled, an excited look on his face. He reached for the paper, and jotted out his name with a higher amount of speed. “Like this. See? Ko. Te. Tsu. But this.” He circled a character. “This actually can also mean ‘Tiger.’ That’s why I took the name ‘Wild Tiger!’” He grinned up at his partner.

Barnaby felt a strange flutter. There was a part of him that seemed to have claimed a victory in finding Kotetsu’s “real” name. He blushed, and to cover it the words came unbidden: “And you’re sure this is spelled correctly?”

He looked a bit wounded. “Yeah. I can spell my own name in both languages.” In a lighter tone, he said, “Say I wanted to write out your nickname, I would write it like this.” He wrote out a character, and then a few squiggly looking things nearby.

Barnaby flushed even more deeply and took that scrap of paper, too. He fell quiet and turned round, out of Kotetsu’s view. He pulled out his wallet and carefully tucked the two scraps of paper inside such that he could view them whenever opening it. He then covered his face and could feel the heat of his blush on his hand.

"You okay?" Kotetsu looked worried. "You don’t have a fever, do you?"

"No!" He surprised himself with the force of his exclamation. He returned to his desk and tried to begin again on his work. He kept catching Kotetsu out of the corner of his eye, however. Kotetsu also watched his partner occasionally with a sad look, and then went back to signing his papers, his arm tucked around the work, much like a kid might around his school work. Barnaby put his chin in his hand and continued poking, slightly, at his keyboard without thinking about it. After almost an hour of quiet half-observation of the other, Kotetsu glanced up to check on Bunny just in time to notice a returning gaze. He hunched his shoulders, and dipped his head down, writing his name, and turned over to a new page. He blushed slightly. Since he’d already been caught, Barnaby watched Kotetsu more openly. "Why…" he began slowly, "Why don’t you sign with your real name?"

"Hmm?" He looked down. _Kotetsu T. Kaburagi_ . “I am signing with my real name. I didn’t think I was supposed to be signing with  _Wild Tiger_ .” He leaned back in his chair, and looked back up at Barnaby.

Barnaby shook his head. “No… not like that. Your real name like you just wrote for me.”

"Oh! In Japanese?" He grinned. "I didn’t think that it would be allowed or anything. English is fine.” Having been distracted, he continued, “This is how you write Kaede’s name." He doodled on his paperwork, in the margins. "Do you want to learn how to write yours? I can show you how to hold the pen to do it."

Barnaby stuttered slightly as he spoke. “We have to work. We don’t have time…” But he looked at the clock and realised that they were already into lunch time.

He glanced up as well. “Oh, hey! Is lunchtime. Want to talk about this over lunch?” He stood up.

"Y-yesss…?" He blinked, sure that it was "showing," his interest.

He smiled a wide smile as he hopped out of his chair, almost knocking it over. He grabbed the back of the chair with one hand and his hat with the other. “Come on. I’ll buy lunch. Grab some paper, and a pen.”

Barnaby protested immediately, “You don’t need to buy my lunch. It only makes sense that I purchase my own meals. And don’t go choosing everything that you want first…” But despite himself he was following, padfolio in hand. He zipped his coat and followed Kotetsu outside.

***

Kotetsu spoke through burger at the diner. “… Mhmm.. make the ‘ko.’ It’s the little boxy one. The Kanji is different, but start with the katakana.” He took a swig of his water. “Yeah, yeah. Like that!”

Barnaby found that forming the kanji wasn’t terribly hard, and he adapted to the method of thinking about the sounds rather easily. It felt like a programming project in robotics, in a way, and it was a way that he enjoyed. When he’d finished, he showed his work to Kotetsu, and smiled, brightly without thinking about it.

"Wow! You catch on so fast! You’re really smart." He looked at it. One or two frustrated attempts at writing differently, and then Kotetsu had let him borrow his pen. He smiled, and handed it back. He raised a hand to pat Barnaby on the head, then considered the burger in his hand. He probably had mayonnaise on his hand somewhere, and Barnaby wouldn’t forgive him if mayo got in his hair. He returned to devouring.

Barnaby idly wrote the names he had learned, and their different forms, over and over. As he wrote, however, they became closer together, or further apart, wandering around the page. He tried different orders of them, and while writing, he glanced at Kotetsu. Who was devouring, in terrifying manner, his lunch. Barnaby chewed a little on his inner cheek when he realised that he found it charming. Not thinking, he wrote 鏑木T.虎徹＆バニー. This he surrounded with a quickly sketched heart shape.

Kotetsu leaned over and looked, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Mhm?” He swallowed hard. “Eh?!”

The exclamation shook Barnaby out of his reverie. His hand clenched reflexively and snapped the pen in two, plus some shards. Liquid ink dripped over his fingertips, and he smeared black over the image. “What?!” he said in panic.

"Heya, Bunny-chan…?" Kotetsu mourned the loss of his pen a little. He picked up one of the halves from the table.

"I will, of course, purchase a pen to replace this! Excuse me!" He grabbed a napkin and dashed to the restroom in something that—were Barnaby Brooks Jr _not_ a world-famous hero and idol who did not  _have_ tizzies—might have been called a tizzy.

Kotetsu took the last swig of his water, and grabbing the ink-sogged paper, followed Barnaby. He leaned on the door to the washroom until it popped open. “Bunny-chan?” The sink wascoveredin black ink. A squid may as well have exploded in the bathroom. At least it was black, because otherwise most would assume that horrible misdeeds had occurred in this lavatory. Barnaby himself was nowhere to be seen. Kotetsu knocked gently on each stall door. “Bunny? Come on… I know I was going to pay anyway, but it’s not cool to leave me hanging like this…” There was no answer. Barnaby Brooks Jr. had very much left the building. A draft blew in from the open window, echoing Kotetsu’s sigh.

***

**PART II: Fugue**

By the time Kotetsu returned to the office, Barnaby was already there and working diligently. He was facing the terminal away from the entrance, and on the phone in addition. His body language screamed, “Do Not Disturb” more than a tag on a hotel door. And on Kotetsu’s desk rested a small box wrapped in simple black paper with a green ribbon. Rather than bother Barnaby, Kotetsu picked up the small box to examine it. It was longer than it was wide. The paper was a smooth matte black. Though small, it had some weight to it. In the lower right corner was stamped, in green metallic lettering, “Kotetsu” in Roman letters, followed by the kanji for “Tiger.” “This for me, Bunny-chan?”

“The arc really isn’t acceptable, though. If we alter the formation on the dorsal area…”

Right. Telephone. Kotetsu fiddled with the ribbon unsuccessfully for a moment and became wrathful. He bent the box slightly as he battled with the ribbon and wrenched it loose. The box unexpectedly popped open and Kotetsu dropped its contents on the floor under his desk. Kotetsu dove for it.

“And, if we can quickly synthesize it, a polymer… a poly _mer_ … I’m very sorry, there is a disturbance behind me…”

Kotetsu’s fingers curled around a shiny black pen. He looked closely, and jerked upward. _Bang_ . His head impacted hard against the underside of his desk. “Ow-ow-ow….” He sat down under his desk and looked at the pen in his hand. It was black, yes, but also somehow silver as well. “Haa.” It was soft noise of appreciation. The he found the inscription: 鏑木T.虎徹. He smiled, and pulled himself up out of the floor. “Thank you.” He looked over at his partner’s back.

Barnaby ignored him, and finished his conversation with R&D. He tried to still the fluttering inside him, and knew he could only keep himself tranquil while not looking at Kotetsu.

He waited for the call to end and then when it finally did, and Barnaby showed no signs of turning around, he made a paper airplane of the paper from lunch and sailed it onto Barnaby’s desk. Barnaby trembled a little, and ignored it until he’d input all changes discussed into his report packet. Then, slowly, with one hand, he reached for the paper and unfolded it.

"Would you like to talk to me?" Kotetsu asked quietly, but in a tone that demanded more than asked. "It seems _something_ has been on your mind?”

Barnaby hung his head. The ink splotch on the paper didn’t hide the silly, sophomoric heart. “I don’t think I want to talk about anything, Kotetsu. Thank you for lunch. And I am sorry for having ruined your pen. I hope the replacement works well for you.” He looked at the clock. Finally! He stood and did the complex maneuvering that it took to tidy his desk and start to leave without fully facing Kotetsu at any point in time. Kotetsu reached out and caught his arm. He leaned in and whispered. “I know that you have a crush on me. And that you don’t seem happy about it.”

Barnaby blanched, whiter than his usual pale color. He walked out of Kotetsu’s grip, and scurried to the elevator. But when the doors opened, Kotetsu was standing outside the, wheezing. He shoved his hands into his jacket and tried to hide his panic while marching out of an elevator. “Bunny?”

Barnaby stalked forward. “I have things to do tonight, and I don’t know that we won’t get called. I need to make use of my time and don’t need to chit chat.”

“But… Bunny… Barnaby? Your, ah, you should talk about this. Your crush, yanno?”

"I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t _have_ crushes.”

"You’ve just never had a crush, you mean? You normally draw hearts around people’s names?" He smiled, placing a hand on Barnaby’s shoulder. "You don’t have to be upset."

"It wasn’t a heart!" Barnaby’s voice cracked with stress. "I… was… having… trouble… withthepen. Getting the proper flow!"

"It’s okay. I don’t mind." He tilted his head, watching Barnaby flail. It was… cute.

Barnaby hugged his arms around himself. Why did this man have to be so understanding? Or so _perceptive_ at just the wrong moments? “You’re talking about ridiculous things.” He walked toward the parking deck, and Kotetsu followed like a half-skipping puppy. At the entrance, he eyed his own boots, and quietly said, “And I’ll get over it. It’s just due to inexperience. It’s natural, isn’t it, that I’d become too fixated? You don’t have to worry about me, Kotetsu.”

Gentle hands slid down Barnaby’s shoulders and upper arms. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t mind.” He said quietly, “I know I’m not real elegant at saying stuff at times.” He scratched the back of his neck now. “But preference was never really an issue with me. Women are great. I’ve found men I was interested in as well. Not that I’ve really ever, ah, I said I wasn’t great at this kind of elegant thing—”

Barnaby’s heart first shot up into his throat, then slide hormonally down into his stomach. He force-of-will stopped it from descending further. “Old man. Kotetsu. Don’t say things like that.” He touched one of Kotetsu’s hands and pushed it away. He didn’t want to let his attachment grow any more, until it ruined the joy he had gained in friendship.

"I’m not saying that we would be red hot lovers, but I would be willing to try, yanno? And if it turned out that lovers is not the way for us, I would still value you for you." Kotetsu’s eyes were wide and bright, pouring emotion into the whole world.

Barnaby stood back and gave Kotetsu a cool eye. “What is it that you think you’re saying?” What on earth? How could Kotetsu say these things? That he had no preferences? That he wanted to “try”? Barnaby had no idea what to do with this kind of kind of declaration!

"I guess I’m saying.. that if I can try to make your life sweeter in someway, then I want to try." Kotetsu smiled nervously, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Barnaby’s heart returned to his chest, and there it beat so hard he thought it would break. “I cannot… accept that kind of thing.” Barnaby lifted his hands toward Kotetsu, as though about to touch his chest, then pulled his hands back into fists. “I will see you later, Kotetsu.” His speech was as formal as he could manage. He backed up, not quite meeting Kotetsu’s eyes. When there was enough space between them, he turned, and jogged back into the parking deck.

"Oy! Bunny! Wait!" He started at a run after him, watching as Barnaby stared back at him wide eyed, and then set out at a run. "Come back, Bunny." Barnaby ran a little faster, opting out of the option of his car (Kotetsu could catch up with him there), ran at full speed toward the edge. He jumped the concrete edge and readied for the impact of the street. He looped around the Apollon building. His breathing rate increased quickly as he set into a hard pace. A glance behind him confirmed that Kotetsu, though behind him, was managing to follow.

"Come back!" He reached into his pocket and grabbed his mask, putting it on. No need for some mad salaryman to be chasing Barnaby Brooks Jr through the streets of Sternbild. He sped after him, trying to catch up, but still keep his air enough for a long run if need be. Bunny had always been a bit faster than him. He had to run smart.

Barnaby for his part ran as though his life depended on it. He looked back repeatedly. Sometimes, he saw Kotetsu. Sometimes, the figure behind him seemed strangely like something else. The familiar figure turned into two, half-burned images of his parents. He ran through the whole memory of his childhood, in secure happiness and weak, important terror. He ran through the years and years of cold loneliness. He saw Maverick behind him, never running, but always right there. He ran and forgot why he needed to keep running, then saw the years that he didn’t know had words until Kotetsu. He ran through month after maddening month of irritation, and broken heart and mind, and frustration, and dependence… Kotetsu behind him, Kotetsu at his side, dragging him through a strange kind of maturation. Barnaby felt tears sting his eyes, pulled from the corners of them from the sharp, cool air as his body cut through it. He ran until his mind had nothing left to bring before him, and he ran through only a white haze of half-memory, half-feeling. And always, the sound of Kotetsu’s feet slapping concrete, or grass, or metal grate—sometimes right behind him, sometimes at a distance… and sometimes, that kind, panting, hopeful voice…

"Bunny! Please wait!" Barnaby leaped, never kicking in his Hundred Power and never completely outpacing him. Barnaby only occasionally looked back, and Kotetsu sped forward. Barnaby hit a street grate, and leaped for the top of a chain link fence dividing grass and road. Kotetsu was right behind him, and under his feet the grate gave away. Kotetsu cried out and was barely able to latch onto the fence. He began to climb, knowing that he would lose Barnaby with this delay.

The squeal of the grate collapsing made Barnaby turn around, however. He watched Kotetsu climb, frantic limb over frantic limb. Their eyes met through the fence. “Kotetsu,” Barnaby said, so quietly that his partner would only have been able to see his mouth move.

His eyes snapped to him, wild and intent on catching his prey. Barnaby felt a pang, and wondered if this is what criminals had once seen in Kotetsu’s most successful days. “Bunny?” he croaked out. He looked down at him through the fence.

Barnaby walked to the fence, and looked up to Kotetsu. His breathing eased quickly, but his heart quickened every step back to Kotetsu. He reached out and touched the lower of Kotetsu’s hands. “You can’t just let me have my every whim. I have to learn to survive without you, don’t I? And if you pursue me, just because I’m being too demanding… you’ll be hurt.” Just then, the rest of the grating behind Kotetsu collapsed, thunking metallic-ly into the sewers beneath.

"I’ve already been hurt, Barnaby. Remember?" He curled his fingers with Bunny’s through the chain link. Barnaby fingered the ring on Kotetsu’s hot hand. He continued talking. "What makes it too demanding to love someone? Especially, I mean, if they happen to like you back?" He hung on the fence, halfway up.

Barnaby’s eyes teared a little more, and he rubbed them away with his free fingers. “I’m too childish for love, Kotetsu. I couldn’t please you. I don’t know how!”

"Childish or inexperienced?" He looked at him sadly.

Barnaby blinked a few times, staring up at his partner. He didn’t have a ready answer. “Aren’t… they… the same?” he stuttered at last, fidgeting his fingers over Kotetsu’s.

"No, not at all. I don’t think." He finally smiled at him, catching his fingers again. "Give me a chance?” When Barnaby maintained his silence, Kotetsu said, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you mad." Thunder rolled over the bay.

Barnaby leaned his head against the fence, and closed his eyes. “I didn’t expect this of you, Kotetsu. Or, I worried that I would expect it of you.” He smiled a little, even as more tears threatened to leak from his closed eyes. “You’re too kind, especially to me. So it’s your fault I’ve become this way.”

"Wait, what is it you didn’t expect?" He peered down at him, his forehead pressed to the fence. "I can’t just let this go with a whimper, Bunny."

Barnaby smiled a little more, then laced his fingers in with Kotetsu’s more, and gripped the fence. He pulled, and stepped into the natural footholds. He pulled himself quickly to Kotetsu’s level, and stared at him. His eyes were pinkened, his cheeks flushed with the exertion and the emotion. His breathing still came quickly over his pale lips. He looked directly into Kotetsu’s ridiculously warm eyes. He tilted his head, and had the appearance of deep thought. “I would demand you… of you…” And he leaned in, metal touching both their skin, and kissed Kotetsu lightly upon the lips. The kiss was soft, between dry lips. Barnaby’s were smooth, perfectly tended. Kotetsu’s were wind-chapped. A light rain began. The drops patted gently against their faces. Kotetsu pressed his mouth against Barnaby’s, through the chain link, and deepened the kiss. Barnaby thought he might get sick at this rate. The jerking of his heart between his throat and very low parts of his anatomy was unfair in the extreme. The sound he made was what would, should he have known how properly, have developed into a moan. His lips moved fervently against Kotetsu’s.

It was Kotetsu who pulled back. “I know you can be demanding. Of all the people in this city, I know. I had to chase you across the city to get a kiss.” He smiled.

Barnaby glared gently. “I didn’t know that you wanted a kiss, Kotetsu.” He hopped back to the ground behind him. He backed up slowly. The rain softened the aggressive curl of his hair. He grinned oddly at Kotetsu. “How far will you have to follow me for anything else?” he asked. Then he turned around, activated his power, and ran as hard and fast as he could, jumping far beyond Kotetsu’s range.

He knew that, eventually, Kotetsu would find him. And what happened then, he didn’t know. But knowing that Kotetsu would follow him would be enough, he thought.

***

**Part III: Permission**

Kotetsu shut the door behind him and sagged against the wood. After a breath, he walked to his couch and collapsed on it. He groaned out air filled with his frustration, exhaustion. He considered grabbing the remote, sure that a couple of people had seen them running through the city. They might be on television. Nah, he didn’t care. Kotetsu rolled over until he could easily get into his pocket. He removed his phone, opened the pictures. The first few were of Antonio and himself, and then there was the one of Tomoe. She smiled up at him from the screen. He set the phone down in front of him, and kicked out the small stand on the back. “I hope you’re not angry for doing this. I still love you, you know.” He could hear, very faintly, the electric hum of the phone. And traffic outside. “When we first got together, I thought I had no more room in my heart for anyone other than you. And then we had Kaede, and it was magical. And I thought, surely, my heart was full now. And then you—” He fidgeted with his ring, turning it on his finger. “I thought it best to send Kaede away. She didn’t need to be with me, not with half my heart gone. What kind of father could I be?” He scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, refusing tears. “It’s gotten better, though! She’s so much like you now. She doesn’t let me get away with anything.”

Kotetsu touched the top of the phone with two fingers, then pulled it closer. “It’s gotten better. And if it’s okay with you, I think my heart might have room again.” Kotetsu panted a little with the terror of that declaration. “I hope you can be okay with that, Tomoe?”

"It might be silly to even bother asking. He wants to just push me away." He ran his fingers over his lips, remembering the feeling of Barnaby’s mouth pressed against his through the fence. He scratched his beard, like he’d been caught in a naughty moment. "He reminds me of you. He won’t let me get away with things like being lazy, or eating too much."

He leaned his chin on his crossed arms.”He’s been hurt a lot, though. And by people that were important in his life. I don’t know how to deal with this. Do I keep pursuing? Or do I treat him like a small animal and let him come to me? Hehe… You remember? I ran into a burning building to save you before our first date, after having a fight with a fully powered up Antonio. Damn cow… Why does this feel so much more frightening?” He sighed, and flipped the photo over to Barnaby’s. “Occasionally, he gives me these terrified looks. I think they’re terrified looks. His eyes get wide, and gain an open honest look. He looks like he doesn’t know what to do. All the rest of the time he’s Mr. Confidant. Kind of an asshole. But then…” He pulled out the pen from his chest pocket, and looked at it. “And then he does stuff like this.” He ran a finger gently over his inscribed name.

He looked back at the screen, returned it to Tomoe’s image. “He gets excited over things that seem odd to me. Like writing this afternoon. He gets it on the first try. He’s smart, like you, like Kaede.” He rolled the pen between his palms, feeling the cool of the metal. “I don’t understand why he would be interested in me.” The words were the most quiet, and the room answered in kind. Kotetsu rolled on his back, looking at the pen. He turned it, then finally just held it, looking at his own name inscribed.

"What do you really think of me, Bunny?"

After a few moments, Kotetsu grumbled, “I don’t want to be one more person to hurt him. I would never want to do that. I would never want to hurt Tomoe, or Kaede, or him. Or me.” He paused again, and this time there were tears in his eyes. He didn’t even try to pretend there weren’t. “Tomoe, I don’t want to be empty and half dead. I want to be whole. I want to be a good man, a good father, and I want to l-love.” He bent his head downward and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. He sat up, and turned off the phone screen. The image of his wife faded away. “Tomoe, can you forgive me for wanting to move on?”

***

**PART IV:Freedom**

It was very late by the time Barnaby arrived at home. He’d had a suspicion that Kotetsu might be there, and wanted to avoid that confrontation for a while yet. He still had so much to sort through. So when the elevator door opened, he peered out from around the side before stepping out onto his floor. “Safe,” he breathed at the lack of evidence of Kotetsu. A part of him sank to know that Kotetsu hadn’t done something ridiculous like wait for him, falling asleep at his door. But at the same time, Barnaby knew that he would have only gotten angry with Kotetsu had he indeed been napping outside his apartment. “Perhaps I have been too harsh on him.” _But how else do you drive someone away?_ Is that what he’d been trying to do? Barnaby sighed again, softly to himself and let himself into the apartment with code and thumbprint. “Kotetsu…” Saying the name tickled his lips. He touched them. No one, not even Maverick, had treated him so cavalierly, with such impunity. For instance, no one  _touched_ Barnaby as much as Kotetsu did. So often, Barnaby let his guard down and Kotetsu managed to pat his hair.

A pernicious thought occurred to Barnaby: was he just treating Kotetsu as a warped father figure? Were these feelings, these mixed desires and excitements distorted hauntings of familial emotions? The pangs of pleasure he felt in their interactions always seemed to bring sense memories of that time, the time before his world became one of drive and revenge and hate. Or did he actually have a valid, passionate emotion for Kotetsu? One that could be addressed by things like that divided kiss in the rain?

Barnaby fixed a glass of water with lots of ice and sat down at his computer. He spent a while restructuring some files systems. Much could be archived. Quite a bit, in fact. And as each folder named “OURO_74MAY” or “OURO_75OCT” or “SUSP_MARTJ” or, at last, “SUSP_MAVRK”, fell into the archival directory, he breathed a little more easily. As he worked, a zen-like calm came to him. He remembered each instance associated with the files created in the past three years, how quickly it all had progressed. And, in every memory that he had of it, there was Kotetsu. Blocking him, distressing him, angering him, and _changing_ him. His heart hurt from the speed and intensity of life beside Kotetsu.

There had been, in the past three years, two constant presences: Maverick and Kotetsu. A perfect, painful pull in villain/hero dichotomy. _Ridiculous_ , thought Barnaby. But the ways in which they were always there, watching him, were so different. If anyone had been a father figure to him, it was Maverick, wasn’t it? Somewhat distant, but always making time to see him. He knew now the scope of Maverick’s nefarious purposes, but the moments of kindness still, even now, felt real. He considered his times with Maverick in new light, but could still remember his emotions at the time: that Maverick fulfilled the role of father that Barnaby needed in his youth and young adulthood. With that thought came another: that Kotetsu was nothing like that father figure. Kotetsu was not distantly paternal. He wasn’t “distantly” anything. He was always directly in Barnaby’s face. He didn’t just let Barnaby act, then change the circumstances that allowed Barnaby’s behaviour to work. Kotetsu hardly listened, but was always beside him.

Barnaby started flipping through the folder marked “APPOLLON_78”. As he scrolled through the files, he found that more and more of them were simple image files or video from OBC. He opened one at random. “Being a Hero is about protecting people you love.” It was one of Wild Tiger’s rare on-the-scene interviews, right after he had rescued six people from a burning school building. “And no matter how much love you think you have, you always get surprised by how you can have… more… love. Because you don’t expect it, see? Love, I mean.” The clip was awkward, obviously. Barnaby patted his mouth with the remote. He let the corner of his mouth quirk upward. The words were entirely Kotetsu. The words were comforting, yes, but not in the same way that the comforting reminder of paternal hugs or praise felt. Barnaby touched his lips again. No, Kotetsu was not a father figure, he thought. Even the idolised image that Barnaby held in his heart of his father and mother never made him want to laugh like Kotetsu, nor did it spur him to action like Kotetsu did, and it certainly didn’t inspire… well, that was beside the point. The base physical would come later, he supposed, if at all.

Barnaby teased over the image of Kotetsu’s face on the screen with his finger. He used perspective to “cup” Kotetsu’s face. With a key press, he moved the entire folder marked “OLD_MAN” to the large screen. He leaned back in his chair and moved the files, renamed them, and just _looked_ at them. “So what about you, Kotetsu?” he asked the dozen kind eyes staring back at him. Some were in confusion, some goofily, some confidently, some in very real physical pain, and some with that quiet authority that Barnaby saw rarest, but which made him both excited and ashamed of himself at the same time for knowing that he had not yet lived up to Kotetsu’s standards. He locked eyes with each photograph in turn. “What do you really think of me, Kotetsu?”

Barnaby blinked away the start of more tears. He felt shame again. He wasn’t like Kotetsu—never confidant of his reason for acting. That was the comfort of points, after all: a ready-made reason. Kotetsu had nobility behind every action, even the stupid ones. He closed the folder and renamed it “KOTETSU” and made it a quick link. He pulled out the pieces of paper from his wallet and set them on his laptop’s scanning plate. He enlarged the one image that he himself had written at the diner. The heart around the unfamiliar characters was truly juvenile. He laughed at himself and closed the image. He looked again to his side table: computer, remote, tiny robot, picture frame, and frayed remains of a sash. He picked up the picture frame. “I think…” he paused to breath. His chest hurt. “It might be time I let myself grow up, Mother… Father… Will you forgive me? For wanting to be an adult now?” The pang in his heart felt almost good. “If I can pursue him with my own intentions, would you allow me to let you just be… memories? Maybe I can make new memories?”

***

**PART V: Maybe I could see you sometime?**

The next morning was rough on Barnaby. He had napped, albeit briefly, before showering and applying a certain cosmetic to hide evidence of lack of sleep. The headache was another matter, and perhaps the migraine strength medication would start working soon, he hoped. Then again, he was a little thankful for the pain, as it helped drive his partner out of his head. The issue would be forced soon enough, after all. Either Barnaby would see him today, or he would spend the day wondering why Wild Tiger did not come to work. Both options were distressing. Right, focus on the pain. Autopilot got him to the office, six minutes early.

Tiger, for his part, whistled tunelessly as he came rounded the corner to their office. “Ohayo!” He grinned (somehow, Tiger could grin loudly) and took his seat. He pulled the stack of papers from his inbox, and flipped through. “No fines?! The world has turned upside down, eh, Bunny?” He elbowed the air space between them.

Barnaby simply stared at him, and shrugged. He let himself smile back at Kotetsu, then returned to the beginnings of his own work. Today he had the chance to make some improvements to the dorsal guidance system. A little more work, and his suit might even come close to rivaling Poseidon’s Hero for air maneuvering. He was still a long way from flight, of course, but still—it was exciting. He calculated and re-calibrated, and made a quick model. Something, however, seemed off about the new bulging aspect. He looked over at Kotetsu, who was holding his pen, his new pen, between his nose and his upper lip. “Kotetsu!” His partner started, dropping the pen into his lap. “What do you think of this?” he asked.

Kotetsu sat forward in his chair, catching the pen to keep it from falling to the floor. He blinked and leaned over the side portion of his desk, looking at the screen. “Think of what?” He tucked the pen safely in his chest pocket.

"It’s a proposed design change to accommodate a new feature. I want to know what you think of what it does to the profile image?"

"Well, ah, I don’t really know about the technical things. I guess it makes your back look kinda weird. What about just walking on a windy day? Wouldn’t that make it equally hard?" He leaned over his desk, one knee up on his chair.

Valid points, Barnaby supposed. He rescaled, calculated the new efficiency coefficient, and tried again. He tried a more angular shape to account for the wind issue. “There. Does that look any better?”

"Wow! That looks really cool." He looked at the design and tilted his head. "Sky High and Fire Emblem were talking about spoilers and air flow the other day. You might consider asking them. They seem happy to talk about the subject. I know that they were talking about adding a wind break between the engines of Sky High’s jet pack, whatever that means, but they seemed to be talking about him going faster."

"I don’t think that would help me, as my only propulsion is from my legs. But still, it couldn’t hurt." He smiled at his partner. "Thank you. It’s a good suggestion."

And so the day went: very strangely comfortably, and productively. By the end of the day, Barnaby was as close to whistling as he’d ever been.

"We had a Hero named Merma a while back. She apparently shaved and waxed everything so that she could go faster through the water. She said it was less drag on her during moving in the water." He leaned over his paperwork as he usually did, signing away with his new pen.

The whistle died in his throat. “I don’t think that would be helpful for me, Kotetsu.” His voice was flat with a bit of menace.

"I meant that anything that air would catch on, would cause you to go slower, yeah?" He leaned back, looking at his penmanship with the new pen. He scowled and sighed. He’d written "Top Mag" at the top of the page.

Barnaby raised an eyebrow and hit “save,” then “submit.”

"The working day is over, and I’ve completed my projects. I’m going to head out. Are you finished as well?" The words seemed stilted and difficult to say.

"…Do you want to come to dinner with me?"

He quickly scratched out “Top Mag” and scribbled in “Apollon Media” and looked up at him. “Sure. I’d like that a lot.”

Barnaby thought that he might like that a lot, too. Barnaby handed Kotetsu his cap…

END


End file.
